The Earth contains an astonishing variety of terrestrial, freshwater, and marine ecosystems, that provide the biological resources and services essential to our survival. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in partnership with other organizations, is generating the datasets needed to better manage, conserve, and restore these vital natural resources that are increasingly threatened by fragmentation, alteration, loss, invasive species, fire, climate change, and incompatible resource extraction.
The Group on Earth Observations (GEO), a consortium of over 100 nations that seek to promote earth observation for solving some of society's most difficult problems, has commissioned much of this work under several of its initiatives. The GEO Global Ecosystem Initiative (GEO ECO), part of GEO’s Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS), has been tasked to develop objective (data-derived) and management-appropriate global datasets to support the sustainability of terrestrial, freshwater, and marine ecosystems.
Research Efforts:
Global data is being developed to provide a consistent and innovative classification and mapping of resources like ecosystems at a finer spatial resolution than any existing eco-regionalization of the planet.
Continental data efforts for South America, the United States, and Africa helped develop and refine the initial standardized terrestrial ecosystems approach that model’s ecosystem occurrences as unique physical environments with biotic and abiotic components.
Terrestrial Ecosystems of the Conterminous United States
A new map of global ecological land units — An ecophysiographic stratification approach
A new map of standardized terrestrial ecosystems of Africa
A New Map of Standardized Terrestrial Ecosystems of the Conterminous United States
The Earth contains an astonishing variety of terrestrial, freshwater, and marine ecosystems, that provide the biological resources and services essential to our survival. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in partnership with other organizations, is generating the datasets needed to better manage, conserve, and restore these vital natural resources that are increasingly threatened by fragmentation, alteration, loss, invasive species, fire, climate change, and incompatible resource extraction.
The Group on Earth Observations (GEO), a consortium of over 100 nations that seek to promote earth observation for solving some of society's most difficult problems, has commissioned much of this work under several of its initiatives. The GEO Global Ecosystem Initiative (GEO ECO), part of GEO’s Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS), has been tasked to develop objective (data-derived) and management-appropriate global datasets to support the sustainability of terrestrial, freshwater, and marine ecosystems.
Research Efforts:
Global data is being developed to provide a consistent and innovative classification and mapping of resources like ecosystems at a finer spatial resolution than any existing eco-regionalization of the planet.
Continental data efforts for South America, the United States, and Africa helped develop and refine the initial standardized terrestrial ecosystems approach that model’s ecosystem occurrences as unique physical environments with biotic and abiotic components.